Archive for the ‘mark mcgwire’ tag

Griffey is a shoe-in for 2016 class; who else might be affected? Photo via freeteam.com

(Editor note: we’ll take a quick break from the minor league reviews and arguing about why the Nats are trying to fill a 5th starter spot instead of one of their several obvious needs for that classic Late December task: arguing about the Hall of Fame. I wrote most of this post much earlier this summer/fall, waiting for the “hall of fame” blogger season to post it. Now’s as good of a time as any).

In the middle of the 2015 post-season, an interesting tidbit got reported by NBCSports’ Craig Calcaterra: The Hall of Fame BBWAA electorate has been reduced by a whopping 20% thanks to the new voter eligibility rules announced back in July 2015.

20% of voters! That’s a huge number. I thought the rules, when they were first announced, would have a negligible effect on things and would be a paper tiger. But losing 20% of the voters will have a profound effect on the ballots going forward. I agree with Calcaterra in characterizing these types of voters as generally being out of touch, industry-has-passed-them-by, believe everything they read from Murray Chass types who have directly led to the ballot congestion and the ridiculous voting patterns we’ve seen lately. No word yet on whether the category of writers purged also includes those who no longer cover the sport actively (the most egregious example being the 3 voters who write for www.golferswest.com) who not only kept their votes but felt the need to pontificate about the state of the sport!).

Early returns are promising, by the way. The BBHOF tracker website has taken the lead in collecting all published ballots and they’re tracked directly in this Google xls. As of the time of this writing, they have about 20% of the ballots in the tracker spreadsheet and borderline candidates like Piazza, Raines and Bagwell are all trending above the 75% needed. Griffey is at a perfect 100% and still looks like a good bet to beat Tom Seaver‘s all time record. That is until some curmudgeons decide they like Seaver more than Griffey and send in blank ballots or some dumb-ass thing.

1/6/16: Class of 2016 announced, as well as 10,000 internet blogger posts on the topic.

7/24/16: Official induction ceremony for the Class of 2016 in Cooperstown, NY

Anyway. Lets look at the 2016 Ballot (hey, its never too early to do Hall of Fame vote analysis) and guess how things may go for the candidates, now that 20% of dead-weight is gone.

Ken Griffey Jr: if anything, his chances of breaking Tom Seaver‘s vote % record may rise thanks to the elimination of a bunch of curmudgeons who have been witholding votes inexplicably to prevent there ever being a unanimous inductee. Easily gets elected in 2016.

Trevor Hoffman: might be hurt by more new-age voters who realize how minimal the impact of a closer is, no matter how good (Hoffman had just a 28.4 career bWAR, less than Mike Trout had accumulated by the end of his third full season, by way of comparison).

There’s not really anyone else new to the 2016 class worth mentioning; I could see Jim Edmonds getting 5% of the vote to stay on the ballot but nobody else getting much more than home-town beat writer sympathy votes. This isn’t an indictment of Edmonds at all; there’s just too many good players on the ballot (our lament every year) and I think he’s a worthy candidate (some of the Jay Jaffe JAWS analysis on Edmonds is pretty telling; for a period of 10 years during his peak he trailed only Griffey and Bonds in terms of WAR).

How about the hold overs? I think there’s good news for some guys:

Mike Piazza/Jeff Bagwell: two “PED-suspicion” guys who have never had any actual concrete proof against them probably now get in thanks to the elimination of a class of voters who probably believed everything they read in the anonymous-sourced NYTimes articles from 10 years ago. Bagwell has further to go and may not get to 75%, but Piazza should.

Tim Raines: the more older/non sabremetric appreciating voters that go mean the higher percentage of votes Raines will get from more modern voters who realize just how valuable he was. Like Bagwell, he has further to go and may not get to 75% this time, but between 2016 and 2017 he should get in.

Roger Clemens/Barry Bonds: I can see their vote totals rise from the 35% they’ve been getting into the 50% range, still not enough to get enshrinement. Still too many wounds and not enough voters who can overcome their disdain for what happened.

Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa: same story as Clemens/Bonds, except whack off another 20% of votes.

Curt Schilling/Mike Mussina: Hard to see their vote totals changing much; older voters were probably giving Schilling too much credit for the bloody sock game but new voters havn’t supported him as much as expected (and he’s doing himself no favors with his continued idiotic political twitter posts). Mussina just doens’t seem like the kind of pitcher that gets elected to the Hall thanks to a long career without specific accolades and being a known pr*ck to the media.

Everyone else held over from the 2015 ballot not already mentioned (Smith, Martinez, Trammell, Kent, McGriff, Walker, Sheffield, Garciaparra) each have specific issues that likely prevent any of them from getting much above the vote totals they’ve already gotten and probably won’t be helped much by the purge of the electorate. I would vote for some of these guys (namely Martinez and Trammell) but understand why others don’t.

This is as close to a prediction piece as we’ll do for the Hall of Fame 2016 ballot (there’s way too many of them already), but my guess is that we’ll be seeing just Griffey and Piazza in Cooperstown in July 2016, with Bagwell, Raines and perhaps Hoffman right on the cusp to join them in 2017 (where the incoming class has some pretty serious PED-related issues that should be fascinating to watch play out; more on that in a year’s time).

So, I’ve been quiet on the blog front lately. Not much to write about right now, other than the injury bug that seems to be going around camp. Max Scherzer named the opening day starter; I guess that’s news for a Monday.

Lets peek at today’sTom Boswell 3/23/15 chat to see what kind of questions he fielded. Despite it being post-March Madness, there’s still some baseball talk going on. As always, I answer here before reading Boswell’s answer and edit questions for clarity.

Q: Say the Nats are under .500 after a couple of weeks. Will a full-scale panic start, or are team and fans’ nerves stronger than that?

A: Maybe the media’s panic will set in, but probably not the fans. If the team is sub .500 after two months … you’d have to start asking some questions. Same kind of questions we asked basically all of 2013. Of course, that being said, the Nats’ early-season calendar isn’t exactly challenging: 10 of their first 11 series of the year are against teams that were sub .500 last year. Now, we are expecting some of these teams (especially Boston, San Diego, Miami) to be much improved from last year … but the point remains. The team has no excuse to not come out of the gates firing. Boswell notes that if all the current injured Nats remain hurt on 4/1 … that fans will expect a long April. He then goes on a long tangent about how screwed up the Dodgers are right now.

Q: Notwithstanding Taylor’s excellent weekend; I don’t understand why Williams would bat him lead-off (regardless of Taylor’s leadoff “skills”) but wouldn’t bat Harper higher than sixth. Does Williams have a double standard for prospects not named Harper?

A: A good question. Certainly some people have questioned Matt Williams‘ ongoing public criticisms of Bryce Harper. Why call him out, in the media, for his supposed transgression of baiting the runner into trying for second? Dude; its the 2nd week of March; it isn’t a big deal. Except by calling him out in public, it *becomes* a big deal since Harper is such a lightening rod in the National media (deserved or not). My two cents: there’s no lack of evidence coming out of the Arizona Diamondbacks organization over the last few years about the institutional bull-headedness concerning “the right way to play” and other old-school baseball idioms, and it seems to me that Williams has continued his dogged old-school ways as the on-field leader of the Nats. Is this a good thing? Probably not. Harper is talented enough to back up his actions (see last year’s NLCS when Harper was one of only two Nats hitters to bother making the trip to SF). But will this conflict become a distraction? Will it drive Harper from this team eventually?

Sorry for that tangent. To answer the question at hand; with Denard Span out, *someone* has to bat lead off, and if you’re an “old school” guy who do you pick? Do you pick the skinny, fast center fielder? Or do you take a smarter look at your hitter capabilities? I guess we’ll see. Boswell says that Taylor batted leadoff in the minors, so he’s ok there. Uh; the bush leagues playing infront of a few hundred people isn’t quite the majors. Oh, and Boswell conveniently “explains” why Harper was batting 6th too. Williams, the old-school manager for the old-school baseball writer Boswell.

Q: Why is Pete Rose back in the news with regard to reinstatement?

A: Because new commissioner Rob Manfred was dumb enough to engage Pete Rose‘s request? The Dowd report was a pretty galling chronicle of Rose’s activities. I think Rose appears as a sympathetic figure because of the ardor to which former commissioner Bart Giamatti pursued his penalty. I too was sympathetic to Rose, feeling like baseball went far out of its way to rid themselves of him at the time.

But, now with time and retrospection, Rose’s sins were pretty bad.

I think the best way for baseball to deal with the likes of Rose, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens and perhaps others will to eventually create a special election with large caveats to their enshrinement. Yes these players were among the best in the game … but broke cardinal sins against the game. Imagine a veteran’s committee designed to create a permanent special exhibit in Cooperstown dedicated to great players who have clouds surrounding their names. I dunno. The cynical part of me says that the museum based in upstate New York has no incentive to *ever* stop the rhetoric surrounding these guys. It gets tiresome to argue about the *same things* over and over … but we do it anyway, year after year.

Boswell coincidentally advocates for Rose for the HoF but not an active role in the game.

Q: With the Nats celebrating ten years in the District, do you have any random memories that stand out since they’ve been in town?

A: I put out a post periodically that talks about “Best games” in Nats history. This question kind of feels like the games captured in this post and in the comments. No need to re-answer.

Q: Who deserves the opening day start?

A: You can make a pretty cogent argument for any of the three of Strasburg, Scherzer or Zimmermann. Strasburg since he’s gotten three straight such starts and normally you don’t replace the home-grown “Ace” of a team. That’d be my choice and my argument, coincidentally. Zimmermann b/c of his no-hitter last year and generally accepted stance as the “actual” best hurler on the team. But its now known that Scherzer is getting the nod (not a real big surprise once you saw how the rotation was laid out starting from early spring). For me (as noted in the prior thread’s comments), Scherzer is the only guy with a Cy Young to his name, so it isn’t surprising that players’ manager Williams goes with the veteran with the most career accomplishment in that ceremonial spot. Works for me; we just bought our opening day tickets (we’re in section 131 I think) so I look forward to seeing him pitch. Boswell says that Strasburg’s sore ankle cost him the spot. BS.

Q: With the likelihood of multiple starters starting the season on the DL, how do you see that effecting the bench players on the roster.

A: We’ve talked about this before, but clearly it means that at least one, perhaps two NRIs are getting opening day jobs. And it means that some options-limited guys are getting shots too. If Span is out a month, Werth can’t make opening day, if Rendon is down and out, if Escobar can’t get enough reps … that’s a lot of spots to fill. For me, just guessing, i’d say the team heads north with Tyler Moore, Tony Gwynn Jr, Michael Taylor and maybe Ian Stewart to start the season. Dan Uggla? Numbers are good; lots of walks. But he can’t play 3B (not well, presumably) and its 3B where the team might need some cover. Boswell is more bullish on Uggla, thinking he’d be a huge steal. I dunno; can’t play SS, doesn’t bat lefty.

Q: Are there going to be any longer-term impacts to demoting Tanner Roark to the bullpen?

A: Maybe. Is it a coincidence that Roark has the worst starter stats of any pitcher this spring? Probably not; spring training NRIs have a tendency to be uber aggressive, and minor league defenders aren’t always adept at catching the ball when playing out of position. Maybe not; Roark’s attitude has sounded great, and he’s hopefully being told that he’s first in line and likely will get a big number of starts filling in for the inevitable injuries. He’ll have his rotation spot back next year for sure. Boswell doesn’t think so.

Q: If the Nats don’t make it out of the first round of the playoffs this year (assuming they will make it), do you think the fans develop the same anxiety that Caps fans have over the years?

A: Yes. Two playoff appearances, two “best record in the majors” and two impotent first round exits to wild cards. If the Nats fail in 2015, then yeah we may begin to wonder what’s going on. Boswell points out that the Caps have one of the worst track records in professional sports.

Q: What is your opening day lineup (including who leads off) given the injury spate?

A: If it were me? If we assume that everyone who is hurt is *not* making it to opening day, I’ll go with something like this:

Escobar-Desmond-Harper-Zimmerman-Ramos-Moore-Frandsen-Taylor pitcher. Escobar at 2B, Moore in LF, Frandsen at 3B and Taylor in CF. Not a great lineup.

A better assumption is that Rendon and Werth will make opening day, which makes the lineup a lot easier. Escobar-Rendon-Harper-Zimmerman-Werth-Desmond-Ramos-Taylor-pitcher. When Span returns, put Escobar at #8 and that’s that.

Boswell doesn’t give a leadoff-suggestion, but using induction by reduction, he’s likely pushing for Escobar at lead-off too.

Q: Is it time to cut the cord on Espinosa?

A: Not until you find someone else who can play short stop in a pinch who isn’t already slated to start. Boswell gives a non-answer too. I don’t feel bad.

Last year’s version of this post is here; it has links to prior years where I went into my general thought process on yes/no votes per individual player. I’ve tired of writing the same 2,000 word post on the topic since everyone else on the internet is, so this is a bit shorter of a HoF post. And it won’t insult me if you don’t respond or even read this post; there’s far, far too much hall of fame arguing going on in the baseball blogosphere, and i’m no more or less qualified to publish an opinion on this ballot than many of the official BBWAA writers at this point.

The 2015 ballot at baseball-reference.com is here. Once again there’s too many deserving players for not enough spots.

For me, there’s three no-brainer 1st ballot hall-of-famers new to the 2015 ballot: Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz. The first two should be unanimous but of course they won’t. In fact, we already have a published ballot of someone who left both off so he could vote for others who “needed the votes.” Smoltz might be borderline for some but for me he’s better than other hurlers recently enshrined; somehow I doubt he gets in this time around.

No for Smith, McGriff, Walker, Mattingly, Sosa and anyone else new to the ballot this year not otherwise mentioned. Why are these No votes? See 2012 and 2013′s links for my reasoning on the names here, all of whom are repeats.

Of course, this is too many “Yes” votes. If I had to cut two of my 12 Yes votes, I’d guess Martinez and McGwire are the first two to go. Or maybe Schilling. Which is a shame because I think all the guys in the “maybe later” have legitimate cases too. But this is the bed that the BBWAA has made for itself with its arbitrary player limit and its wishy-washy stance on alleged PED users.

2015 voting Prediction: Johnson, Martinez and Biggio elected. Smoltz just misses, and Piazza & Bagwell get close enough that they’ll go in with the 2016 class (which only has one no-brainer candidate in Ken Griffey, Jr). Still no love for Bagwell, the PED brothers, or Raines, much to the chagrin of the sabr-crowd.

1/6/15 update: My prediction was too conservative: Johnson, Martinez, Smoltz and Biggio inducted in 2015. Piazza got 69% of the vote and seems like a good bet for 2016. however Bagwell and Raines lagged seriously behind, at just 55% of the vote each. Another huge gap after that leads to a trio of players in the mid 30s … not nearly enough to talk about them getting in next year.

He voted for Rafael Palmeiro but not Mark McGwire (I’d tend to disagree here but he reasonably explains why). He voted for Jack Morris but not Curt Schilling or Mike Mussina (again, even up comparing Morris to either of these guys I’d disagree, but I also like Morris for the Hall despite all the vehiment arguments that people make against him). Olney explains his thoughts about the “character clause” that seems to be catching so many voters in the most clear and concise way i’ve seen.

Its just a nice read in the face of the just over-the-top criticism on the baseball blogosphere (which is heavily slanted towards the use of metrics above all else) of writers and their votes.

Like you, i’ve had my annual fill of reactionary blog postings to those writers who make their ballots public, with titles judging whether or not the ballot was “good” or “bad” based on whether or not the voter did or did not include someone’s pet name. Olney simply dismisses these criticisms by saying that “he understands arguments but disagrees.” I’m tired of some kid writing blog posts in his mommy’s basement acting as if he knows more than a guy who has been covering the game, in the clubhouses and on the road, for 25 years. (Yeah that’s a total cliche but it isn’t far from the truth; if you found out that some blog post was written by a college freshman who just took a stats class and thinks he knows everything, would you give it more weight than by a veteran beat reporter for a major newspaper? I didn’t think so). I’m ready for the announcement of the 2014 class to come, one way or another, so we can get back to preparing for next season.

Before starting, if you hadn’t heard Deadspin has bought a Hall of Fame vote this year and is going to submit it as populated by crowd sourcing. Click on this link to go to Deadspin.com’s page to vote. Voting at deadspin ends on 12/28/13 and all hall of fame ballots are due to be mailed back to the BBWAA by 12/31/13. The class of 2014 will be announced later in January.

Everyone else has a post about how they’d vote if they had a BBWAA ballot. Here’s mine. Only its slightly different from how i’ve done these in the past.

Joe Posnanski has put out a survey in October 2013 that anyone can take that simply asks you to rank the 2014 candidates 1-10. It is an interesting exercise because it very quickly highlights the depth of the ballot, since as everyone knows, there are many very deserving candidates who are outside the top 10 and who may very well fall off the ballot this year because of the glut of candidates. It also makes you think; if you rank your candidates 1 to 10 … how many names would you be leaving off your ballot that you’d want to vote for?

So, instead of doing a “who’s on/who’s off” post like i’ve done in years past (and like everyone else does) here’s a different take driven by Posnanski’s ranking question.

My first 8 “Yes Votes” were relatively easy: Maddux, Bonds, Clemens, Thomas, McGwire, Bagwell, Glavine, Piazza. I don’t think there’s one of those 8 candidates who shouldn’t be a slam dunk hall-of-famer based on baseball accomplishments. (That most all of them likely do not get in because of PED suspicions is another story). The only one of my top 8 that doesn’t match with Posnanski’s survey results is McGwire (replace him with Raines, everyone’s favorite Bert Blyleven-style charity case for getting more support).

Then I got stuck. Who were the last 2 I’d put on the ballot? Lets look at the rest of the 2014 ballot:

Voting No altogether: Walker, McGriff, Palmeiro, Smith, Sosa and anyone else new to the ballot this year not otherwise mentioned. Why are these No votes? See 2012 and 2013’s links for my reasoning on the 5 names here, all of whom are repeats.

Remaining Pitchers in order that I’d likely vote them in: Schilling, Morris, Mussina

Remaining Hitters in the order that I’d likely vote them in: Raines, Martinez, Kent, Biggio, Trammell

So I guess my last two would likely be Schilling and Raines, or perhaps Raines and Martinez.

Man, tough ballot this year.

If there wasn’t a 10-person limit, then I’d go crazy and probably vote for 16 candidates, basically the first 8 plus all the other “remaining” players above. I’m by no means a “small hall” person, and I’m also not obsessed with the stat-driven arguments against Morris. I think all these guys merit a plaque in Cooperstown.

Coincidentally, to all those people who write 1,000 words on all the things the BBWAA should do to fix the congestion issue (expand beyond 10 names, remove the 5% threshold), just stop wasting your time. Year after year the BBWAA stays in the news for weeks at a time exactly because they refuse to change the standards. Why would they relent now?

If you want to read how I’ve weighed in on the Hall votes in year’s past, here’s some links:

And lastly, I have a huge draft post dated from Dec 2011 with pictures from my actual visit to the Hall of Fame that I started but never finished (mostly because adding pictures to WordPress is a huge pain in the *ss). Maybe I’ll get bored, finish it up and post that in conjunction with the 2014 class announcement.

Can Jack Morris eventually be the first “1980s Starter” to make the Hall? Photo John Iacono via si.com

First off: I’m not a “small hall” guy. (How can you, when looking at the litany of obscure players the Veteran’s Committee has already enshrined while the current ballot has literally a dozen names that you can make an argument for?) So naturally I want to see enshrinement for a larger number of the “marquee” names in baseball’s history. I view the Hall of Fame as a museum dedicated to the game, and recognizing all the eras of the game for better or for worse. I’m for expanding the current ballot and If I had a vote i’d be maxing out the 10 names with a desire to put a couple more guys on.

I’m also distinctly of the opinion that maybe the era of baseball just prior to today’s is underrepresented in Cooperstown. Specifically, my theory is that the massive boom in offense that the game has seen in the last 20 years coupled with a distinct shift in the way pitching staffs are managed has led to voters and fans to discount and dismiss the accomplishments of players specifically from the 1980s.

MLB.com has a show called “Prime 9,” where they list the best 9 players/teams related to certain topics. Recently they showed the “Best 9 players of the 1980s” by position, and it led me to use that list as a starting point for a discussion of marquee players from the 1980s and to decide whether or not the decade is under represented in Cooperstown.

Here’s Prime 9’s top player by position and their Hall of Fame status. Throughout this entire article, Blue == Hall of Fame players while Red == non-Hall of Fame Players.

Four of the Nine players listed as “Best of the Decade” are not in the Hall of Fame. I think there’s something wrong here. I know Morris is incredibly polarizing and probably never gets in, while the other three guys (Evans, Murphy, Mattingly) each had knocks against them related to durability and peak that prevented them from being enshrined. Perhaps these are future Veteran’s committee picks.

I know the above list is arguable; perhaps those players aren’t necessarily the “best” at their positions for the decade. So lets talk about the leading candidates per position who didn’t make the Prime-9’s list, and their own HoF status. The MLB show didn’t distinguish between SP and RPs so I’ve separated them out below, nor did they distinguish between the OF positions like they did for the team selected above.

I’ve included the guys in the above “Prime 9” list in the lists below for ease of analysis by position.

(Coincidentally; as you read the vote percentage totals, keep in mind that a voting percentage of less than 1% means that the player got only a handful of votes from the 500+ votes tallied each year, a woefully small number).

Kirk Gibson: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2001 with only 2.5% of the voting.

Dave Winfield: 1st ballot HoFamer in 2001 with 84.5% of the vote.

Kirby Puckett: 1st ballot HoFamer in 2001 with 82.1% of the vote.

Tony Gwynn: 1st ballot HoFamer in 2007 with 97.6% of the vote.

Pedro Guerrero: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1998 with only 1.3% of the voting.

Jim Rice: 15th ballot HoFamer in 2009 with 76.4% of the vote.

Daryl Strawberry: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2005 with only 1.2% of the voting.

Jack Clark: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1998 with only 1.5% of the voting.

Andy Van Slyke: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2001 without receiving a single vote.

This makes for 16 total outfielders on the “Best of the decade” list. Of those 16 outfielders, 10 are not in the Hall of Fame. Would you say that the position is under-represented in the Hall if only 6 outfielders from an entire decade of the sport are enshrined? Maybe, maybe not. To say nothing of the fact that 2 of these 6 HoFame 80s outfielders (Rice and Dawson) were heavily criticized upon enshrinement for being voted in based on remnants of “old man” statistics.

Jack Clark you say? 50 Career WAR. That’s nothing to shake a stick at. Higher than a number of Hall of Fame hitters. I remember him being more of a power hitter than he turned out to be. He just couldn’t stay healthy; only 5 seasons where he played close to a “full season” in 18 years in the league. I remember him fondly from my childhood; my family is from San Francisco and I always rooted for the Giants as a kid.

Middle Infielders:

Cal Ripken Jr: 1st ballot HoFamer in 2007 with 98.5% of the vote.

Ryne Sandberg: 3rd ballot HoFamer in 2005 with 76.2% of the vote.

Garry Templeton: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1998 with only 0.4% of the voting.

Ozzie Smith: 1st ballot HoFamer in 2002 with 91.7% of the vote.

Alan Trammell: on current ballot, his 12th attempt. Max votes: 36.8% last year.

Robin Yount: 1st ballot HoFamer in 1999 with 77.5% of the vote.

Lou Whitaker: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2001 with only 2.9% of the voting.

Dave Conception: fell of HoF ballot on his 15th attempt this year in 2008. Max votes: 16.9% in 1998.

Lots of baseball pundits have lamented Whitaker’s fate, while plenty others vociferiously argue for Trammell, who had the misfortune of being both the 2nd best offensive SS (to Ripken) and the 2nd best defensive SS (to Smith) of his era simultaneously, thus being overshadowed by both. Conception was about an equal at the plate to Ozzie Smith but only about half the Gold Gloves, but still seems like he deserved a bit more credit than he got in the voting.

Third Basemen

Mike Schmidt: 1st ballot HoFamer in 1995 with 96.5% of the vote.

Wade Boggs: 1st ballot HoFamer in 2005 with 91.9% of the vote.

George Brett: 1st ballot HoFamer in 1999 with 98.2% of the vote.

Paul Molitor: 1st ballot HoFamer in 2004 with 85.2% of the vote.

Terry Pendleton: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2004 with only 0.2% of the voting.

Tim Wallach: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2002 with only 0.2% of the voting.

Buddy Bell: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1995 with only 1.7% of the voting.

Four first ballot hall of fame 3rd Basemen played in the era (even if most consider Molitor primarly a DH later in his career) which is saying something considering there are only 12 full time 3rd baseman in the Hall from all of history. The all-star game starters for the entire decade were almost entirely Schmidt, Boggs and Brett. The others I fully acknowledge are “stretches” but did each have several all-star appearances during the decade.

First Basemen

Don Mattingly: on current ballot, his 13th attempt. Max votes: 28.2% in 2001, his first year on the ballot.

Steve Garvey: fell of HoF ballot on his 15th attempt this year in 2007. Max votes: 42.6% in 1995.

Mark McGwire: on current ballot, his 7th attempt. Max votes: 23.7% in 2010.

Not much to say here: There seemed to be a definite lack of quality first basemen for the decade; only one is enshrined in the Hall. Many of the all-star 1B appearances early in the decade went to aging stars Rod Carew and Pete Rose, who by that point in their long careers had been moved to first base for defensive purposes. McGwire’s issues are obvious (and he’s clearly more well known for his exploits in the 1990s, so its arguable if he even belongs in this 1980’s centric discussion).

Catchers

Gary Carter: 6th ballot HoFamer in 2003 with 78% of the vote.

Carlton Fisk: 2nd ballot HoFamer in 2000 with 79.6% of the vote.

Lance Parrish: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2001 with 1.7% of the voting.

Benito Santiago: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2011 with 0.2% of the voting.

Darrell Porter: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1993 with zero (0) votes.

Tony Pena: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2003 with0.4% of the voting.

Terry Kennedy: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1997 with exactly one (1) vote.

Yes, I’m really stretching for 1980s catchers. Basically Carter made the all-star team every year for the NL while Fisk made half the All Star Starts for the AL during the same time. The backups were generally catchers having a decent first half, many of whom never made an other all-star team. Boone was better than you remember, hence his hanging around the bottom of the ballot for a few years.

Closers/Relievers

Lee Smith: on current ballot, his 11th attempt. Max votes: 50.6% in 2012.

Bruce Sutter: 13th ballot HoFamer in 2006 with 76.9% of the vote.

Dennis Eckersley: 1st ballot HoFamer in 2004 with 83.2% of the vote.

Rich Gossage: 9th ballot HoFamer in 2008 with 85.8% of the vote.

Jeff Reardon: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2000 with 4.8% of the voting.

Tom Henke: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 2004 with 0.6% of the voting.

Dan Quisenberry: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1996 with 3.8% of the voting.

Kent Tekulve: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1995 with 1.3% of the voting.

Willie Hernandez: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1995 with 0.4% of the voting.

I’m not going to vociferously argue for Relievers/Closers to be inducted, since I think they’re mostly overrated in terms of their contributions to wins. But I will say that a couple of these guys were far better than you remember. Take Tom Henke: career 157 ERA+, which was better than either Sutter or Gossage PLUS he had more career saves (311 for Henke compared to 310 for Gossage and 300 for Sutter). How exactly are two of these three guys Hall of Famers while Henke got exactly 6 votes out of 515 his first time on the ballot? These voting patterns just seem drastically inconsistent.

All the above though pales in comparison to what we’re about to see.

Starters

Jack Morris: on current ballot, his 14th attempt. Max votes: 67.7% this year.

John Tudor: fell off HoF ballot on his 1st attempt in 1996 with 0.4% of the voting.

Roger Clemens: on current ballot, his 1st attempt. Max votes: 37.6% in 2013.

Here is where I think I really have a problem with the Hall of Fame treatment players in the 1980s; I think the entire generation of Starting Pitchers has been generally underrated and overlooked. Look at this list of pitchers and look at the number of guys who failed to even stay on the ballot for more than one season. Meanwhile, you can argue that the three guys who ARE on this list who are in the Hall of Fame (Carlton, Ryan and Blyleven) all actually “belong” to the 1970s; they just happened to have longer careers that bled into the 1980s. Clemens appears here because his late 80s debut was so strong but clearly he’s a player of the 90s, and his reasons for non-inclusion thus far are obvious.

Do you mean to tell me that NONE of these other 1980’s starters merits inclusion to the Hall of Fame? That an entire decade of starting pitchers doesn’t historically merit inclusion? I’m not going to argue that all (or most) of these players belong, but it is kind of shocking that so many of the leading pitchers of that era were given so little consideration.

My biggest beef may be with Saberhagen. Here’s the side-by-side stats of Saberhagen and a Mystery pitcher we’ll identify in a moment:

Wins

Losses

IP

K’s

ERA

ERA+

bWAR

Saberhagen

167

117

2562 2/3

1715

3.34

126

56

Mystery Player

165

87

2324 1/3

2396

2.76

131

50.3

Pretty close, no? Saberhagen contributed more WAR and was nearly this player’s equal in ERA+, which adjusts to the eras. Mystery player’s W/L record is better … but then again, havn’t we learned that wins and losses are meaningless stats now? A couple more facts here: Saberhagen won two Cy Young awards while the Mystery player won Three. Saberhagen led the league in ERA just once while Mystery player did it 5 years in a row.

The Mystery player here (if you havn’t already guessed) is none other than Sandy Koufax. Now, I’m certainly not saying that Saberhagen is the equal of Koufax, certainly not when you look at Koufax’s last 5 seasons or his 4 no-hitters. My point is this: Koufax was a first ballot hall of famer … and Saberhagen got 7 votes out of 545 ballots. Saberhagen may not be a Hall of Famer but he deserved to be in the discussion longer than he was.

Others have mentioned the lack of support for Dave Steib, who had a relatively similar statistical case to Saberhagen. Similar career bWAR (53.5), similar ERA+ (122), and similar injury issues that curtailed his career. Steib’s award resume isn’t as impressive (zero Cy Youngs but 7 All-Star appearances in his first 11 seasons), and he was basically done as an effective player by the time he was 33.

There are some other surprises on this list too. Jimmy Key you say? Go look at his career stats and you’ll be surprised just how good he was. 186-117, a 3.51 ERA (which sounds mediocre) but a career 122 ERA+. A couple of stellar seasons (two 2nd place Cy Young votes). I’m not saying he’s a hall of famer, but I am saying that he was better than you remember. There’s absolutely pitchers in the Hall with worse ERA+ than Key’s.

Coincidentally, you can make the argument that many of these players really “belonged” to a different decade, if you wanted to really just focus this discussion on the 1980 decade.

Gooden, Van Slyke, Puckett, McGwire, Clemens and Pendleton had careers that started the late 80s but who flourished mostly in the 1990s.

But, I think the point is made, especially when it comes to pitchers. So I left all these players in.

Here’s a couple other ways to look at the best players of the 1980s. Here’s a list of the top 20 positional players by “Win Shares” for the decade (data cut and pasted from an online forum). As with above, blue=hall of famer while red indicates not.

Most HoFame pundits lament the lack of support for Raines specifically, but it is interesting to see how high up both Murphy and Evans fall on this list.

Now, here’s Pitcher WAR accumulated in the 1980s. I took this data from a posting on BeyondtheBoxScore blog back in 2010, who was arguing (of course) why Jack Morris didn’t deserve to be in the hall of fame. However, the table here also illustrates nicely who were really the best pitchers of the decade, and most of these guys are in the list above.

Notice the same 3 names appear here as appeared above for Hall of Fame starters. Also notice the surprisingly high appearances of players like Soto and Higuera; I didn’t even include them in the above analysis, perhaps providing my own bias because certainly I wouldn’t have included these two in any conversation about the best pitchers of the 80s. But the point is now made statistically; of the 20 best pitchers by WAR for the entire decade, only 3 are enshrined in the Hall.

I havn’t done this analysis for other decades but I’d be surprised if other decades were so underrepresented. Think about how many obvious hall of famers pitched in the 1990s; Just off the top of my head: Clemens, Mussina, Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, Johnson, Pedro, Schilling and perhaps eventually Hoffman and Rivera. Maybe guys like Cone and Pettitte deserve more thought. Lee Smith is still on the ballot. That’s a lot of names for one decade as compared to what’s happened to the 1980s guys.

So, after all this, do we think the 1980s players are underrepresented in the Hall? I count 17 positional players, 3 relievers and 3 starters from the era. Perhaps the answer is, “there’s plenty of positional representation but the Starters are not fairly represented.”

Why are there so few starters from this era enshrined? Did we just see a relatively mediocre time period in baseball with respect to starting pitchers? Did we just get unlucky with the longevity and injury issues related to the best pitchers of the era (Hershiser, Saberhagen, Steib)? Did changes in bullpen management that came about in the 90s (lefty-lefty matchups and more specialized relievers) combined with increasing awareness/sensitivety to pitch counts (100 pitches and you’re out) contribute to this fact? If you’re a starter and the assumption is that you’re pitching 9 innings no matter what your pitch count is, you’re going to approach the game differently and pitch with a different level of effort than if you knew you were getting the hook after 100 pitches and/or in roughly the 6th or 7th inning. Did this contribute to more mediocre-appearing ERAs for starters of this era? Is that a good argument to use, as compared to 90s’ and modern pitchers who go all-out for 7 innings and then sit (versus starters of the 90s, who would often face the 3-4-5 of the opposing team a FOURTH time in the late innings while sitting on 140 pitches)?

Biggio has to wait for enshrinement to the HoF. Photo Karen Warren/Houston Chronicle

Obligatory HoF Reaction post.

I wasn’t going to write one. But email/text conversations later I thought it may just be easier to write a thousand words on the topic.

As the front page of the BBWAA site says, “No players elected for the first time since 1996.” Also for only the 8th time in the history of balloting, no player was elected this cycle by the electorate.

We all knew this day was coming. You can google articles from nearly 5 years ago when the whole slew of these first time players were first known to all be eligible on this ballot and know this day was coming. And now here we are.

My interpretation of the results for the major players kind of goes like the following:

Craig Biggio was “penalized” by some voters for not being a “First Ballot Hall of Famer” calibre player. Therefore lots of voters who have annointed themselves the keepers of this title skipped voting for him this year. Much like what happened to Roberto Alomar (who went from 73% to 90% from 1st ballot to 2nd) we probably see Biggio get > 90% next year. He’s clearly a hall of famer, but clearly not a first balloter in some eyes.

Jack Morris is screwed. He only rose from 66% to 67%, indicating to me that enough people have bought into the anti-Morris narrative that has been so fully expoused by sabre-tinged writers to outlast the old-school guard of baseball writers who covered Morris and remember him as I do.

Piazza and Bagwell both are side effects of the PED argument, but clearly get more credit for possibly being clean than the next two names. But enough people are believing that “back acne” proves PED usage for Piazza, and “muscles” proves PED usage for Bagwell, so both will likely struggle to get to 75% for a few years.

Clemens and Bonds: both getting almost identical vote totals in the 36-37% range despite both being amongst the best who ever played indicates a clear statement being made by the older voters, who clearly are penalizing these guys for their alleged/accused/leaked grand testimony involving PEDs. I’ll bet though that both players will get significantly more votes in subsequent years and probably eventually make it.

Sosa and McGwire: probably both never get in, since both are in the 12-16% range. Writers clearly believe both guys were 100% the product of andro and steroids, and thus artificially gained their accomplishments.

Bernie Williams and Kenny Lofton both amazingly will fall off the ballot. I don’t think either are HoFamers but I also thought they deserved to hang around on the ballot for a while (kind of like a Dale Murphy or a Don Mattingly) to discuss.

Tim Raines and Lee Smith are probably never getting in; their vote totals don’t seem to be changing much, and a slew of more deserving names are coming in the next 5 years.

Edgar Martinez, Trammell, McGriff, Walker, Mattingly: they’re all marginal candidates for different reasons, and they all seem likely to die on the ballot in the 30-40% range. I like Martinez for the Hall; in a sentence if you elect the best relief pitchers, how can you not elect the best designated hitters?

Palmeiro sealed his fate the moment he tested positive. It doesn’t matter if he broached magical barriers of 500 (homers) and 3000 (career hits). He’ll never get in.

Lastly, the interesting case of Curt Schilling. 38.8% on the first ballot. What does this mean? He’s definitely never been accused of PEDs, had a great peak, was absolutely one of the best pitchers in the game for at least a short amount of time, has 3000 Ks but not 300 wins (or close to it), had an iconic moment in the bloody sock game, and was on two different WS winning teams. A 127 career ERA+ puts him career 48th, even or ahead of plenty of hall of famers. Why so few votes? What statement is being made here? I’m not sure entirely. Maybe this is a combination of the “not a first ballot hall of famer” denials AND some sense of outrage against the outspoken Schilling from older media members who covered him and still vote primarily with their egos.

Back to the question of the article; is the HoF in trouble? Well, yes and no.

No because I think Biggio will be elected next year, along with two more big names who have never had a schred of PED accusations (Maddux and Glavine). And you can see guys in each of the subsequent years easily being elected (Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez in 2015, Ken Griffey Jr in 2016, Pudge and Manny in 2017 unless there’s still PED outrage at that point. And that ensures there’s ceremonies with who should be absolute no-brainer electees each year for the next few years.

But, Yes because Cooperstown and the Hall itself are not always profit making endeavors, and having an election year without any recently retired players is going to mean a massive drop in income for the town and the hall. Reportedly the museum has lost money in 8 of the last 10 years. That coupled with the continued recession, and we could see some serious financial hardship in upstate New York in 2013. Will it be enough that the BBWAA agrees to one of the litany of election system changes being proposed on the internet? Maybe, maybe not. But if this continues into 2013, yeah we may see something change. Perhaps a panel of judges versus the BBWAA electorate (similar to what the NFL does) makes sense in the long run. The point is that the HoF NEEDS to have a compelling election class in order to stay profitable, and may change its entry mechanisms to guarantee attendance (and thus revenues) each year.

One thing I do agree with; I think writers who purposely send in a blank ballot should be removed from the voting system. You just can not look at this list of players and tell me there’s not at least ONE deserving candidate. A blank ballot does nothing but hurt the chances of legitimate players to be honored and should be interpreted as a writer who does not take the process seriously.

Murkier are my thoughts on entrance requirements to the BBWAA in general. Should we allow in all these internet baseball writers? I think that a lot of the moral outrage and indignance expressed by frequent baseball bloggers over the BBWAA and the “old school” writers is simply mis-placed jealousy that they (the internet blogger) are not eligible to vote. There is a section of the BBWAA constitution that talks about internet writer acceptance and the requirements don’t seem that unfair. The intent of the organization is to find people who “cover the game” but also people who actually “attend the games,” interview players and coaches, and are generally members of the traditional media. People who have access and who understand more than the average baseball blogger, who interprets box scores and statistics websites to pass judgement. I’m ok with the limitations set out as thus.

Two other quick thoughts:

Yeah, we should probably increase the 10-player limit.

Yeah, we should probably force writers to reveal their ballots (much as the major awards now do).

Until next year. One thing is certain; much like relief over the end of the election news, I’m relieved that no more HoF articles will be appearing.

As we’re about to read, over and over again from every writer in the Baseball world, this is the Steroid-era ballot. Several of the biggest names of the era are on the ballot. Just in case you were wondering who has or hasn’t been officially linked to PEDs, here’s a handy guide for your ethical dilemma.

I typed up such exhaustive opinions on a number of candidates from the two previous versions of these posts, that I won’t repeat them here. Instead i’ll just state below, of the returning candidates this year here’s who I’d vote for and who I wouldn’t in list form.

Returning Candidates I’d vote for:

Jeff Bagwell

Jack Morris

Tim Raines

Mark McGwire

Edgar Martinez

Returning Candidates that I would NOT vote for (my reasons mostly are stated in the 2012 class post referenced above):

Bernie Williams

Alan Trammell

Lee Smith

Larry Walker

Rafael Palmeiro

Don Mattingly

Fred McGriff

Dale Murphy

New Candidates in 2012 that I’d vote for, with some discussion; Unlike a lot of opinions I state, my thoughts on the Hall of Fame have always been more driven by how a player “seems” to be in the pantheon of baseball history. I don’t like to get into the same stats-driven discussions that other writers do. So and so had a career WAR of X, or a career ERA+ of Y, which makes him better than this other guy.

Barry Bonds: A transcendent player before any use of “the cream” or “the clear,” this 7-time MVP is clearly in the pantheon of the greatest players of all-time. The best 5-tool player since Willie Mays, the only thing that should have been standing in the way of unanimous voting is Bonds’ surly nature towards sports writers (several of whom would have “penalized” him by omitting him from first ballot status).

Roger Clemens: replace “7-time MVP” with “7-time Cy Young winner” and the Bonds argument essentially repeats itself with Clemens. Normally we’d be talking about his place as one of the greatest right handed pitchers to ever play the game. Instead we’re talking about how much of his later career was enhanced by virtue of foreign substances.

Mike Piazza: One of the best 3 hitting catchers of all time (Johnny Bench being the best, with Yogi Berra in the discussion), his purported “back acne” proof of steroid use likely costs him votes. Which is just ridiculous, but that’s the nature of this ballot and the next 15 year’s worth of ballots unfortunately.

Curt Schilling: his career accomplishments don’t include a Cy Young award, but that wasn’t for lack of trying; he just happened to pitch in the same ERA as Randy Johnson and Johan Santana in his prime power. But Schilling was a game-changing starter, an Ace who could get you the win. He was one of the biggest “big game” pitchers out there. And, his legendary playoff performances push him over the top for me. Some will argue against him b/c he “only” had 216 wins or he “only” had a career 3.46 ERA. He passes the eye test for me.

Craig Biggio: he wasn’t the flashiest player, but then again you can’t judge middle infielders the same way as you judge power hitters. Biggio hit the 3,000 hit plateau, was a good combination of power (291 career homers) and speed (414 career SBs), and showed good defense (several Gold Gloves). For one of the last career one-team guys, he makes the cut for me.

New Candidates that I would NOT vote for:

Sammy Sosa: 600+ career homers, and I can’t help but think that a good number of those were either PED or corked-bat assisted. That’s probably completely unfair, but you can make a good argument that more than 150 of his career homers were likely “surplus” to his legitimate career capabilities. He averaged 37 homers/season as he approached his prime, then suddenly averaged 60/season for four seasons. Clearly Bonds’ 73-homer season is attributable to a single-season PED spike, but Sosa made a career of it. There’s just no way for me to distinguish who the real Sosa was (he had a 99 OPS+ the year before his power spike) versus the PED enhanced version.

Kenny Lofton: I know lots of people view Lofton in the same breath as Rickey Henderson in terms of quality lead-off hitters, but to me he was just a vagabond who kept looking for work year after year. He played for 12 teams by the time he hung them up. Perhaps I’m not really “remembering” his time in Cleveland, where he stole a ton of bases and set the table for that powerful lineup. He had a handful of gold gloves, a handful of all-star appearances. I may be under-appreciating him a bit, but when I hear his name I don’t knee-jerk Hall of Famer.

Everyone else first time eligible, the best player of which is probably David Wells. Wells basically had two good seasons (the only two times he received any Cy Young consideration) and otherwise was a rubber-armed hurler who prided himself on making 35 starts despite being in god-awful shape (as noted extensively in Joe Torre‘s book The Yankee Years).

I’d be shocked if anyone else on the first time eligible list got enough votes to even stay eligible for 2014’s ballot.

Critics may state that my fake ballot has some inconsistencies; how can I support a vote for Biggio but not for Trammell? How can you vote for McGwire but not Sosa? How can you vote for Edgar Martinez but not Larry Walker? How can you vote for *any* PED guys but shun Sosa and Palmeiro? How can you support Morris but not support Wells? All these are good points; good arguable points. Maybe if I had an official ballot I’d have a more serious discussion with myself about these points. All the above thumbs-up/thumbs-down opinions are mostly knee jerk, did the guy “feel” like a hall of famer as opposed to a full statistical analysis. As I covered in my Jack Morris piece, I think its ok to have slightly lesser players who contributed more to the baseball pantheon than slightly better players statistically who had no real lasting impact on the game.

And for now, that’s good enough for me and my fake Hall of Fame ballot.

(Editor’s note: I wrote this more than a month ago but got sidetracked. So apologies for the content being a bit dated).

A post-mortem thought to the overwhelming number of baseball columns, blog postings and sabrematrician rants against Jack Morris but emphatically for Jeff Bagwell in the weeks swirling around the 2012 Hall of Fame elections.

What exactly does it mean to be “in” the Hall of Fame?

Yes, I know what it really means; if you’re elected to the HoF, you get a bronze plaque in the Hall of Fame gallery, listed among all others that have been elected and selected over the course of the past 80 years or so. (Of course, if you go an look at the names on the plaques I’ll challenge you to recognize all the names enshrined; there’s been so much revisionist history of players from the 1930s done by veterans committees, as well as an almost apologetic enshrinement of nearly every halfway decent Negro Leagues player from the early part of the century, that the actual “Hall” contains mostly names that are unknown to most mainstream baseball fans. But I digress…).

But here’s the thing; for all that is spoken about the fact that Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose “are not in the hall of fame” …. they really are! Both players have their images and discussion of their impact on the game in the various decade-specific exhibits, and nearly every other player who has been of significance has a picture or part of an exhibit at some point within Cooperstown’s walls. Both players are bio’d, discussed and have their accomplishments documented.

So, in some ways I don’t really “get” the argument. All these players we argue about endlessly ARE in the Hall of Fame. As is Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and most of the steroid-era players by virtue of their mention in the “Records” exhibit about 2/3 of the way through the museum.

For me, the Hall of Fame is a museum dedicated to the history of the game; certainly that’s how its set up and configured (If you’ve never been … you’d probably be surprised if you visited). All these aforementioned players are a part of that history, whether we like it or not. And the Hall recognizes that, not shying away from listing players who have known warts or who have had their candidacy for the enshrinement section banned by a current or former Baseball Commissioner.

Maybe all these arguments surrounding whether or not Player X belongs “in the Hall of Fame” need to be tempered, or at least modified to say “in the specific enshrinement exhibit.”

A viewing of the HBO special “Freakonomics,” which turns chapters of the popular book into little mini vignettes, along with a conversation with my father prompted me to investigate the aspects of human behavior with regard to incentives when considering the rise of Steroid use by major league baseball players in the late 1990s. One of the overriding themes in Freakonomics is that any aspect of human behavior can be predicted by analyzing the incentives facing those persons when making a choice.

So the question here is, were the growing incentives to players in terms of rising baseball salaries directly tied to the growing use of Steroids in the mid 1990s?

Steroids had been around for many years prior to appearing en-masse in Baseball. The most infamous use came from the East German Olympic teams during the late 70s and early 80s, who systematically doped their own athletes (mostly without the athlete’s knowledge) from 1971 until 1990. But seemingly only after the 1988 Seoul Olympics saw sprinter Ben Johnson test positive for one steroid and admitted the use of a host of other Steroids, Testosterone and HGH substances did the “Steroid Era” in baseball start. In fact, 1988 is also acknowledged as the beginning of the era in the Mitchell Report (per Section D of the Summary, pg SR-14). However, I’d argue that the mainstream usage of Steroids didn’t occur for a few years after (see the rise of 45+ homer seasons below).

Here’s a chart of Mean and Median US household income from 1974-2010, with the Minimum and Maximum MLB salaries, the Average MLB salary, that MLB salary listed as a multiple of the US mean income, and the number of 45+ home run seasons seen per year:

Year

Median Income: Current Dollars

Mean Income: current dollars

Minimum MLB Salary

Maximum MLB Salary

Average MLB Salary

Avg MLB salary as multiple of Mean US income

# of 45+ Homer Seasons

2012

$480,000

$32,000,000

2011

$414,000

$32,000,000

$3,305,393

0

2010

$49,445

$67,530

$400,000

$33,000,000

$3,297,828

49

1

2009

$49,777

$67,976

$400,000

$33,000,000

$3,240,206

48

3

2008

$50,303

$68,424

$390,000

$28,000,000

$3,154,845

46

1

2007

$50,233

$67,609

$380,000

$23,428,571

$2,944,556

44

4

2006

$48,201

$66,570

$327,000

$21,680,727

$2,866,000

43

5

2005

$46,326

$63,344

$316,000

$26,000,000

$2,632,655

42

5

2004

$44,334

$60,466

$300,000

$22,500,000

$2,486,000

41

4

2003

$43,318

$59,067

$300,000

$22,000,000

$2,555,000

43

4

2002

$42,409

$57,852

$300,000

$22,000,000

$2,383,000

41

4

2001

$42,228

$58,208

$300,000

$22,000,000

$2,264,000

39

9

2000

$41,990

$57,135

$200,000

$15,714,286

$1,987,000

35

4

1999

$40,696

$54,737

$200,000

$11,494,794

$1,726,000

32

6

1998

$38,885

$51,855

$200,000

$14,936,667

$1,378,000

27

9

1997

$37,005

$49,692

$200,000

$10,000,000

$1,314,000

26

3

1996

$35,492

$47,123

$200,000

$9,237,500

$1,101,000

23

6

1995

$34,076

$44,938

$109,000

$9,237,500

$1,094,000

24

1

1994

$32,264

$43,133

$100,000

$6,300,000

$1,154,000

27

0

1993

$31,241

$41,428

$100,000

$6,200,000

$1,062,000

26

3

1992

$30,636

$38,840

$100,000

$6,100,000

$1,012,000

26

0

1991

$30,126

$37,922

$100,000

$3,800,000

$845,383

22

0

1990

$29,943

$37,403

$100,000

$3,200,000

$589,483

16

1

1989

$28,906

$36,520

$60,000

$2,766,667

$489,539

13

1

1988

$27,225

$34,017

$60,000

$2,340,000

$430,688

13

0

1987

$26,061

$32,410

$60,000

$2,127,333

$402,579

12

3

1986

$24,897

$30,759

$60,000

$2,800,000

$410,517

13

0

1985

$23,618

$29,066

$60,000

$2,130,300

$368,998

13

0

1984

$22,415

$27,464

$30,000

$2,500,000

$325,900

12

0

1983

$20,885

$25,401

$30,000

$2,500,000

$289,000

11

0

1982

$20,171

$24,309

$30,000

$2,500,000

$245,000

10

0

1981

$19,074

$22,787

$30,000

$2,500,000

$195,500

9

0

1980

$17,710

$21,063

$30,000

$2,500,000

$146,500

7

1

1979

$16,461

$19,554

$16,000

$1,170,000

$121,900

6

3

1978

$15,064

$17,730

$16,000

$700,000

$97,800

6

1

1977

$13,572

$16,100

$16,000

$700,000

$74,000

5

1

1976

$12,686

$14,922

$16,000

$700,000

$52,300

4

0

1975

$11,800

$13,779

$16,000

$670,000

$44,676

3

0

1974

$250,000

$40,839

0

There’s several landmark seasons of note in terms of escalating Salaries through this list. By year:

1975 saw Catfish Hunter become the first “true” Free Agent subject to bidding wars among teams, and signed a 5yr/$3.35M deal with the Yankees that resulted in his league-leading salary to nearly triple the league leading salary from 1974.

1979 saw Nolan Ryan become the first $1million/year player.

In 1982 George Foster became the first $2M/year player.

By 1989, Kirby Puckett became baseball’s first $3M/year player.

In 1992, Barry Bonds hit free agency on the heels of MVP seasons in Pittsburgh and more than doubled the previous high annual salary.

2001 saw Alex Rodriguez‘s infamous Texas contract kick in, paying him $22M/year, nearly $7M more per year than the next closest player (Kevin Brown, who signed baseball’s first 9-figure contract).

Rodriguez opted out of that same contract and re-negotiated the terms even higher with the Yankees, eclipsing the $30M/year mark by 2009.

Meanwhile, take note of the red-colored years of 1996 to 2001, the core of the Steroid Era. 1996 saw no less than Six players eclipse the 45 home run barrier, including Brady Anderson in a complete aberration year for the lead-off hitter (he hit 50 homers in 1996 but averaged just 19 per 162 game segment and never hit more than 24). Suddenly in 1998 no less than Nine players eclipsed the mark, lead by the Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa home-run hitting competition that transfixed the nation and “saved” baseball. Too bad we now know what America didn’t know then; that both players were using Performance Enhancing drugs to beef up, help power out baseballs and take advantage of a slew of new ballparks that opened in the era that featured cozier dimensions and more offense.

By 2002, enough pressure from the front office towards the player’s union had taken place to start testing, leading to the infamous “anonymous survey” done of players in 2003 that resulted in “between 5-7%” of players testing positive, leading to mandatory testing in 2004. By 2008 we were back down to homer levels not seen since the early 1990s, and baseball didn’t see a single player hit the 45 homer barrier in 2011. But historically the damage has been done; the home run leader boards from the time period in question lists like a Who’s Who of steroid accusations, and a generation of middle-aged baseball writers who grew up idolizing the home run leaders of yesteryear now seems set to penalize these players for their drug usage (proven or otherwise, as with the Jeff Bagwell Hall of Fame case).

But, everything I just wrote is known narrative. Lets talk about the explosion of baseball salaries as compared to the common man. In 1975 the average MLB salary of $44k was a little more than 3-times the mean US household income, having risen only gradually over the years thanks to the Reserve clause and a non-existent players union. It was a boon for owners, who kept salaries down and profits high. But the low salaries also meant that most baseball players were considered “within reach” of the every-man in America. Players weren’t paid such ridiculously high salaries that they essentially live in a different world from the fans (as is the case today with most professional athletes in this country): these players were considered “just like us” to a certain extent, and frequently had off-season jobs, working along side the same people who paid a few bucks for a bleacher seat to cheer them on. “America’s Pastime” largely earned that title from being the only sport in town for most of the century, but was also helped along by the “within reach” argument.

By 1980, with the country in a severe recession and gas lines around the block, Joe Public slightly increased his average pay. However, Baseball players, thanks to the breaking of the reserve clause and the rise of Free agency were seeing a boom in salary hikes. By 1980, the average MLB wage was 9 times the median income in the country and a few ballplayers were making $1M/year. This ratio of US income to MLB income grew slightly over the next decade; ten years on in 1990 the average MLB wage was just 16x the US income. But changes were about to come. In 1996 the MLB salary multiple was 23-times the US mean, but by 2001 it was nearly 40-times the US mean salary. The average MLB salary more than doubled inside of these 5 years. This change coincided exactly with the beginnings of the Steroid era and also mirror the 6 year stretch where the game saw its historical rise in home runs.

So the question is: is this coincidence? Was the rise in steroid use driven by player’s desires to maximize their earning potential or was it vice-versa (i.e., players discovered steroids could escalate performance, started using and producing and that lead to the quick rise in payroll?) Or was this all more attributable to weaker pitching driven by expansion and smaller ball-parks?

I think you can make the case that home run hitters were highly compensated and were commercially the “heros” of the game (remember the “Chicks Dig the Long Ball” commercials?), and other players figured out that Steroids helped pack on muscle mass and enabled themselves to hit the ball further and faster (to say nothing of the fact that steroids enabled players to come back from injury faster and to stay stronger through the season by virtue of added muscle mass), and rode the trend. Hit 40-45 home runs one year, sign a contract extension the next. Suddenly the game found itself full of juiced up, highly compensated sluggers with a massive ethical problem.